Warmflash lab

@warmflashlab.bsky.social

133 Followers 61 Following

Quantitative development with pluripotent stem cells

Image of crowd at Rice Stand up for Science event
Notice of Award FAIN# R35GM149328 Federal Award Date 02/20/2025
Don't allow the Trump administration to use the Federal Register to block NIH funding Dear Senator Cruz, I am a professor at Rice University in Houston where I run a research lab which focuses on stem cell biology. Our research provides the basis for new ways to prevent birth defects and infertility and for designing new treatments in regenerative medicine. My lab has nine full time employees who work hard every day pushing this important research forward. Like many labs in biomedical science, my lab is dependent on NIH funding. All over the country, funding from NIH creates jobs and drives progress towards cures that benefit all Americans. Recently, federal courts have blocked the Trump administration's freeze on federal spending. However, the administration is now using a technicality to prevent any new grants from being funded. Funding relies on rigorous peer review meetings with a roster that must be published in the Federal Register before the meeting. The Trump administration is currently blocking posting to the register, effectively preventing any new grants from being funded. This circumvents both Congress's power of the purse and a court order stating that the federal spending freeze must end. If this is allowed to continue, the impacts on scientific progress towards cures as well as on our economy will be severe. Research will stop and people will lose their jobs. I urge you to do everything in your power to call attention to this issue and to put an end to this abuse of procedural rules to implement policies which the courts have blocked. Sincerely, Aryeh Warmflash